Oscar Wilde - Impressions of America

Ten days later he spoke at Prince’s Hall on his “Personal Impressions of America,” and on subsequent occasions at Margate, Ramsgate and Southampton. On Monday, July 30th he lectured at Southport and on the following Thursday he went to Liverpool to welcome Mrs. Langtry on her return from America, and the same afternoon he left on his second visit to the States in order to superintend the rehearsals of “Vera,” which it had been arranged to produce at the Union Square Theatre, New York, on August 20th following. The piece was not a success – it was, indeed, the only failure Wilde had. However, his next play, which he called his “Opus Secundum,” also a blank verse tragedy, had a successful run in America in 1891. This was “The Duchess of Padua,” played by Lawrence Barrett, under the title of “Guido Ferranti.” This has not been seen in England, nor is it even possible for Wilde’s admirers to read this early offspring of his pen, for only twenty copies were printed for acting purposes in America and of these but one is known to be in existence, in this country at least.

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First produced at the Opera Comique, April 23rd, 1881. Wilde was burlesqued as Reginald Bunthorne, a Fleshly Poet.

Wilde repeated this lecture throughout the States during his tour. At Rochester, on February 7th, he met with a most disorderly reception on the part of the College Students. Two days later Mr. Joaquin Miller, of St. Louis, wrote to Wilde saying that he had “read with shame about the behaviour of those ruffians.” To this Wilde replied, “I thank you for your chivalrous and courteous letter,” and in the course of his letter makes a more special attack on that critic whom he terms “the itinerant libeller of New England.”